After a rather
restless night's sleep - caused by 90% excitement about going to Florida and
10% anxiety about the looming fog threatening to affect one of our flights - I
was up bright and early double and triple checking that I hadn't forgotten
anything and that all my last minute things that needed to be packed were
tucked safely in my case. My cousin/best
friend/travel buddy/Disney diva Carly picked me up around 7am and after
obliging to my mum's request to pose for photos in our matching Mickey/Minnie
hoodies we were off en-route to the airport.
I'm not going to lie, despite
Carly's constant fog and flight updates and warnings, I was still pretty
confident that our flights would be fine. A slight niggle of worry was
there…but that was all. I was far too excited to be heading to the happiest
place on Earth to be overly concerned. Once we got our
cases checked in we headed for a pretty chill airport breakfast complete with
mimosas (we were on our holidays after all ;) ) - all the while totally
confident that our journey would be undisrupted as there was less than an hour
until take-off and no delays had been mentioned…yet.
After boarding the
plane with still no warning of a delay, the pilot shattered our hopes and
kindly informed us that due to the fog we wouldn't be cleared for take-off for
another two hours and that we'd have to wait it out on the runway - just in
case by some miracle we were allowed to leave before that time (we weren't).
With less than 30 minutes between our new Gatwick arrival time and Orlando
departure time things weren't looking good for our connecting flight, but in
true Disney spirit we refused to let the delay get us down. We explored the
cockpit (don't worry we were still on the ground!), drank some wine, and took
some selfies…
Although we
physically landed with about 25 minutes until our Orlando flight was meant to
depart, by the time we were actually allowed to leave our little plane that
window was down to about 10 minutes…which is really not a lot of time to get
from one side of Gatwick airport to the other! Due to this time restraint, and
fuelled by white wine spritzers, we sprinted as fast as two moderately unfit
girls can sprint all the way to our check in desk. My heart actually leapt when
I saw our plane still on the ground and the tunnel bridge still connected…until
the super rude woman working on the check in desk abruptly ripped our hearts
out and told us that check in was closed and that no exceptions would be made.
She even had the cheek to tell us how important it is to be on time for your
flight! Let's just say she was a bit of a Disney
Villain.
For the next hour
and a bit we were passed from pillar to post along with around forty other
angry Scottish folk that shared our situation. The whole airport was chaotic as
the bloody fog had affected tons of other flights as well as our own and nobody
seemed to know what to do with us. There were no flights to Orlando for the
rest of the day and word was spreading around the grumpy Scots that it could be
up to three or four days until they got flights for everyone. Carly and I tried
to put on brave faces for each other but deep down were totally gutted at the
prospect of losing a few days of our long awaited Disney vacation.
With our spirits and
bodies slumped on the floor we were just about ready to accept defeat when the
most unimaginable thing happened. Finally a member of British Airways staff who
really seemed to know what was going on approached the group with some truly
unbelievable news. Just as the plane we were all supposed to be on was taxiing
and preparing to take off, a passenger on board who was terrified of flying,
took a panic attack and demanded to be let off of the plane. The crew had spent
a good while trying to calm the passenger down but ultimately they wanted to
leave. A shame for the passenger having the panic attack, but by some twist of
fate this delay allowed us to board our original flight and before we knew it
our journey was back on track!
Despite getting off
to a very bumpy start, the flight was
enjoyable with plenty of movies to watch, some surprisingly yummy plane food,
and did I mention….complimentary alcoholic beverages??? Yes that'll be seven
wines please and thank you.
By the time we
arrived in Orlando we were pretty buzzed (in more ways than one), pretty tired,
but also pretty damn grateful to be there just a couple of hours later than
scheduled rather than a couple of days. The only other hiccup was that our
luggage wouldn't be arriving until the following day, but with $50 each in
compensation we were happy to just be there and get on with things. After
finally checking into our hotel we made a quick dash to the local 24 hour
Walgreens for some cheap clothes for the next day and some hotel room
necessities such as Lucky Charms and mini M&Ms. Finally we grabbed a Pizza
from Pizza Hut, stuffed our faces in bed, and crashed out with pizza grease
still fresh on our faces, dreaming of the day at Disney world ahead of us.
¡Por favour manténgase alejado de las puertas!
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